Street Fight Daily: ApplePay on the iPad, Groupon’s Chairman Opens Up

Street Fight Daily: ApplePay on the iPad, Groupon’s Chairman Opens Up

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…

Apple Pay Is Coming To The iPad (Business Insider)
Apple’s next line of iPads will likely support Apple Pay, according to The New York Times’ Brian Chen. The iPads are expected to be announced at an event on Thursday. Apple’s new iPads could be used as registers to accept payments from iPhones, sort of like an iPad cash register.

Groupon Chairman Ted Leonsis: ‘I Kind Of Fell In Love With Company’s Challenges’ (Chicago Tribune)
“I kind of fell in love with the challenges they were facing every moment around marketing, platform development, payments, positioning, hiring of people,” Groupon Chairman Ted Leonisis said in an interview. “Not a day went by that I wasn’t somehow involved.”

How One Gannett Paper Is Reacting After ‘Slow Slide’ From Cost Cutting (Street Fight)
In August of this year, the entire editorial staff at the Asheville Citizen-Times was required to apply for re-employment in a reorganization with new job descriptions. Executive Editor Josh Awtry told readers: “It would have been easier to change nothing in the way we operate … but we weren’t ready to accept that fate.”

Google Profit Will Depend on Wringing More From Mobile Ads (New York Times)
Ghere is one longstanding problem investors will be sure to pick over when the company’s earnings numbers are released. As people spend more time with mobile phones, where advertising has been less lucrative, Google has seen an effective drop in ad prices.

Ebay Misses Slightly On Revenue, But Paypal Stays Strong (CNet)
As eBay gets ready to spin off PayPal, its third-quarter earnings show just how much faster PayPal is growing than eBay’s marketplace business. eBay CEO John Donahoe said he and Chief Financial Officer Bob Swan are working closely with the new leaders of the soon-to-be-two companies as the transition moves forward.

Apple Invents Seamless Outdoor to Indoor Map Transitioning (Patently Apple)
The mapping system could start with in-car navigation to a parking lot and then transition to an indoor parking map and eventually further transition to the inside your destination, be it the inside of a mall, a school, a convention center and beyond. In 2013 Apple acquired WifiSLAM and this invention likely borrows some of their technology.

Uber Rival Gett Is Making a Risky, Clever Play in the Ride-Sharing Game (Slate)
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there are contestants in the on-demand car-service game other than Uber and Lyft. One of them is Gett, and starting today it’s making a big move to get more recognition from arguably the most important players: for-hire drivers.

What Retail Stores Want to Do With Your Consumer Data (Mashable)
It shouldn’t come as a shock to hear that retailers are monitoring your movements and actions when you shop online. Online stores commonly track your cookies to find out where you’ve been, what you’ve searched for and what you purchased. When it comes to physical storefronts, however, retailers are largely unaware of where shoppers go and why.

Roadside Assistance Start-up Urgent.ly Raises $1.2M From Investors (Washington Post)
District start-up Urgent.ly, the maker of an app that connects distressed drivers with roadside assistance, has collected $1.2 million from investors, executives announced Tuesday. Motorists who find themselves broken down, locked out of their car or with an empty fuel tank use the Urgent.ly app to locate the nearest roadside assistance provider.

Johnny Rockets Restaurants To Roll Out E La Carte’s Tablets To 200 Locations (TechCrunch)
In the race to become one of the top tableside tablet providers, Silicon Valley-based E la Carte has just scored another notable restaurant deal to follow that of the Applebee’s win from last year: the company says today that it’s preparing to install its tablets at over 200 U.S. Johnny Rockets locations starting next month.